306 
wisely bought the whole stock.” He gives no date, however. 
. Bean’s account of it is different; he says: “introduced by 
Col. Edmund Smyth* from Garhwal about 1865 and first culti- 
vated at Elkington Hall, Lincolnshire.” I have also another 
account of its origin from the late Mr. T, W. Webber, who was 
in the sixties of last century a forest officer in Kumaon and 
whose book ‘‘ The Forests of Upper India,’”’ published in 1902, 
is an interesting account of work,- travel and sport in the 
Himalaya and Central India at that time. Mr. Webber wrote 
in May 1907 to Mr. J. W. Oliver, who sent his letter on to me 
some years later, as follows: “ The straight, upright Arwndinaria 
anceps (so named at Kew) which I sent you was from seed which 
I procured myself in Kumaon high up, and it has been growing 
in the garden here roel Treland) for 25 years. There is a clump 
30 yards round. It sends out lateral suckers and spreads itself 
rapidly.” Mr. Wabbot, with whom I had already got into com- 
munication myself in 1907, sent me specimens of the culms, 
culm-sheaths and leaves from his clump, and they were 
undoubtedly A. anceps. Mr. Webber was in Kumaon from 1861 
to 1864, in which latter year it is probable that the bamboo 
flowered and seeded, and that Mr. Webber and others collected 
the seed and distributed it. I think it may be useful to put 
this information on record. Though I myself believe that the 
Kumaon A. anceps and the Jaunsar A. jauwnsarensis are the 
same, we cannot be quite sure until flowers of the latter are 
available. It is to be hoped that the Forest Botanist to the 
Dehra Dun Research Institute will keep an eye on the plants 
at Mundali. The flowers of A. anceps are remarkable for having 
spikelets often 4 ins. long, with 8 to 9 flowers in each, and 
resemble those of some Japanese species and notably A. japonica 
and A. Simoni 
ee to letters preserved at Kew, written by Colonel Edmund 
Smyth of Elkington Hall, Louth, Linco Inshire, and dated Noy. 16, and 
bo 18, Tae he introduced Arundinaria anceps between 1862 and 1865. 
says he sent a small sack of seeds to his father at Elkington and that 
whet he came home in 1868 he fotind a large seed bed of plants there 
$ 80 ones wer 
a igh gr 
distributed amongst various friends. Colonel Smyth observes that the 
seed was gathered for him by a native official of Soshinaeh in British 
Garwhal. 
